PositiveID acquires Easy Check Medical Diagnostics

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. PositiveID on Wednesday acquired the intellectual property rights and assets of Easy Check Medical Diagnostics in an effort to expand its portfolio of noninvasive glucose-level testing products and diabetes management tools under development.

“Existing solutions in diabetes care are painful and have mediocre compliance rates,” stated Scott Silverman, PositiveID chairman and CEO. “With our current portfolio of products under development, we are hopeful we can improve diabetics’ lives while helping them manage their healthy glucose levels, thereby decreasing the risk of diabetes-related complications and reducing medical costs.”

Easy Check presently has two primary products under development: the Easy Check breath glucose detection system and the iGlucose wireless communication device.

The Easy Check breath glucose test is a non-invasive glucose detection system that measures acetone levels in a patient’s exhaled breath. The association between acetone levels in the breath and glucose is well documented, the company noted, but previous data on the acetone/glucose correlation has been insufficient for reliable statistics. Easy Check’s breath glucose detection system combines a proprietary chemical mixture of natrium nitroprussid with breath exhalate, which is intended to create a new molecular compound that can be measured with its patent-pending technology. This product, if approved by the Food and Drug Administration, could eliminate a patient’s need to prick his or her finger multiple times per day to get a blood sugar reading.

Easy Check’s other product under development, its iGlucose system, uses wireless SMS messaging to automatically communicate a diabetic’s glucose readings to the iGlucose online database. iGlucose is intended to provide next-generation, real-time data to improve diabetes management and help ensure patient compliance, data accuracy and insurance reimbursement. In addition, PositiveID believes that the iGlucose wireless communication device is the first to address the Medicare requirement for durable medical equipment manufacturers and pharmacies to maintain glucose level logs and records for the millions of high-frequency diabetes patients.

CRN opens international headquarters

WASHINGTON The Council for Responsible Nutrition on Tuesday announced the opening of its international headquarters in Manno, Switzerland. CRN will be opening a new wholly-owned entity to be known as the Council for Responsible Nutrition-International (CRN-I), the dietary supplement industry association announced.

“This was a natural progression for CRN to formalize the work it’s been doing for decades by standing up for science-based principles for dietary/food supplements worldwide,” stated Mark LeDoux, CRN. “CRN-I will provide a new forum by which we can strengthen our current efforts, with a particular emphasis on promoting sound nutrition and food safety policies, and encouraging government bodies, regulators and other decision makers to make policy recommendations that are well-grounded in science. In this global economy, having a European-based platform from which to disseminate science-based policy recommendations has been imperative to maximize our influence on behalf of our multi-national members doing business around the world.”

The new organization announced its immediate first priority is to conduct a one-day scientific symposium –“Scientific Issues Related to Codex Goals” — taking place July 3 in Geneva, Switzerland, in tandem with the Codex Alimentarius Commission meeting. The CRN-I conference will include invited international regulators and policy makers, nutrition scientists and academics, to share perspectives on Codex-related issues relating to risk management and scientific standards for health claims.

“We have a responsibility to our members and to our consumers worldwide to ensure that regulators and policy makers have the opportunity to engage in intellectual, peer-reviewed, science-based discussions so that they can consider these viewpoints as part of their policy-making process,” LeDoux said.

The CRN-I Board will be announced at the first CRN-I annual meeting, scheduled for April 15 in Paris in conjunction with the meeting of the Codex Committee on General Principles.

The new-to-mass RTD protein shake, called Syntha-6, features six proteins—including milk, whey and soy—that each are metabolized by the body at different rates, allowing for a more gradual supplementation of protein.

Sports enthusiasts and avid dieters may be credited with driving sales of protein supplements higher last year by some 22%; for the 52 weeks ended Dec. 26, 2009, sales of protein supplements reached $148.3 million across food, drug and mass (including Walmart), according to Nielsen Group data.

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